Holy Communion Under Both Species

Our practice of being able to receive the Holy Communion under both species, i.e., the Precious Blood as well as the Sacred Host, suspended during the pandemic, will resume at the weekend Masses of September 27/28.
 
At Communion time, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion will take their “stations” with the chalice. These will be made clearly enough to the communicants.  

• At Our Lady of Sorrows, the stations will be at the four “corners” of the sanctuary.   
• At St. Anthony, the stations will be to the right and left of the ministers distributing the sacred hosts, along the front of the sanctuary and at the cross aisle in the center of the nave.  

In its doctrine of “concomitance” the Church affirms that that when we receive the Holy Eucharist under the form of the Sacred Host only (a single species) we receive the Lord Jesus, whole and entire. When we likewise receive the Precious Blood from the chalice only (a single species), we receive the Lord Jesus whole and entire, Body and Blood, Soul, and Divinity. We should not think that by receiving the sacred host alone our Communion is somehow deficient in grace.
 
The purpose of receiving both the Sacred Host and Precious Blood is “that the fullness of the  sign may be made more clearly evident to the faithful in the course of the Eucharistic Banquet.” (St. John Paul II, 2004)  It is not that one receives more grace than when the Eucharist is received under one species alone, but the we are enabled to appreciate vividly the value of the sign. One is not under any obligation to receive from the chalice but is certainly encouraged to do so.
 
The CDC has found that no documented transmission of any infectious disease has ever been traced to the use of a common communion cup. The consensus of the CDC is that a theoretical risk of transmitting infectious diseases by using a common communion cup exists, but that the risk is so small that it is undetectable.